Historian/musician. Truth, fairness, justice! Interested in the genuine facts behind current affairs. Must be the historian part of me!
As Sally Gainsbury (Nuffield Trust) says at the heart of the budget part of the NHS crisis is a simple fact:
'While technological advance elsewhere tends to reduce costs, in healthcare it increases them by expanding what treatments are possible. As a consequence, it also expands what the public expects to receive.... [And so] healthcare consumption tends to grow at more than twice the rate of population growth'.
Managing that is, of course, the political challenge
Patients have been bearing the brunt of infection control in hospitals, having to go to great lengths to protect themselves and their loved ones.
They’re unfairly judged, psychologized and mistreated for masking and/or requesting staff mask.
Covid is still here. It’s still killing and disabling people. We’re also seeing outbreaks of tuberculosis, measles and the worst flu season in over a decade.
Public health is being systematically dismantled and gagged by the Trump administration, allowing misinformation and disinformation to flourish and putting even more lives at risk.
Why don’t we have mandatory masking in healthcare? Why are we killing and disabling patients who go there for help? Who can’t ‘just stay home’?
The second article in my Masks in Healthcare series looks at patient stories, retaliation, and what we can do to make hospitals safer for everyone.
https://www.disabledginger.com/p/we-need-mandatory-masking-in-healthcare
#covidisairborne #covidisnotover #longcovid #sarscov2 #chronicillness #healthcare #keepmasksinhealthcare #wearamask #ableism #eugenics #disability
The Department of Education Threatens to Pull the Plug on Colleges
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/opinion/education-department-dei.html?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Home Page @home-page-newyorktimes
Greenland’s rapidly melting ice and landslide-prone fjords make the oil and minerals Trump covets dangerous to extract https://buff.ly/41qZZLm
@troed “Update: After this article was published, Bluesky restored Kabas' post and told 404 Media the following: "This was a case of our moderators applying the policy for non-consensual AI content strictly. After re-evaluating the newsworthy context, the moderation team is reinstating those posts." @404media.co @404mediaco @404media
People in industrial societies get more sleep than hunter-gatherers.
New Scientist reports "an analysis of 54 sleep studies conducted around the world has found that people in small, non-industrialised societies actually get less sleep than those in more industrialised regions."
Just as he tried to redefine "hoax" to mean true stories that he didn't want people to believe, Trump is trying to redefine "fraud" to mean government spending that he doesn't like.
Plants losing appetite for carbon dioxide amid effects of warming climate
#Plants and #trees have had it good for the last century or so. Rising levels of #carbon dioxide helped to spur growth and warmer temperatures gave rise to a longer growing season. But at some point these benefits start to be outweighed by the negatives of a warming #climate: wildfires, drought, storms, floods, the spread of new pests and diseases and plant heat stress all reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that plants absorb.
Ed Miliband is grossly misleading people on energy costs https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/02/26/ed-miliband-is-grossly-misleading-people-on-energy-costs/ Ed Miliband claimed yesterday that his so-called UK Energy company will reduce the cost of electricity to consumers in the UK. Unless he changes the rules on energy pricing it will do no such thing. Why do Labour ministers talk total nonsense? Are they ignorant, stupid or liars? It's a fair question to ask.
If Rafeal Behr is right Labour is embarking on 'a gruelling mission of rearmament & renewed national focus on security, in a dangerous world where the US is an unreliable source of protection & its president can’t be counted as a friend' then 'national security' will become a bigger part of policy discussion.
As I've said: if Labour also keeps with its 'growth' mantra, the only way real option is explicitly adopting a form of Military Keynsianism!
"Washington... has not given firm security guarantees to war-torn Ukraine "
I really hope Zelenskyy doesn't sign the deal until they do. Surely firm security guarantees are an absolute necessity?
#COVID19: Study Suggests Long-term Damage to Immune System
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/covid-19-study-suggests-long-term-damage-immune-system
Well, President Adams, do I have something to tell you!
Odds of asteroid YR4 hitting Earth just went up again, reaching new high
The asteroid, big enough to wipe out an entire city, now has a higher chance of smashing into our home planet in 2032, according to NASA.
#asteroid #NASA #Earth #space #Science #Trending
https://globalnews.ca/news/11023757/yr4-asteroid-hit-earth-possibility-percentage-record-high-2032/
“US is now least reliable partner in NATO” says UK MP.
And not just any MP - Gethins is an ex-Prof in International Relations.
Stephen Clear (BangorU) ask whether a DOGE-styled intervention is possible in the UK?
His conclusions that the UK's (unwritten, but still widely codified) constitution means that while not impossible a Trump/Musk disruption of politics looks unlikely is a lot less reassuring than it might seem on the surface as underlying is the 'good faith actor' model of political action, which the far Right are showing they are hardly constrained by!
#politics #RuleOfLaw
https://theconversation.com/could-elon-musks-government-takeover-happen-in-the-uk-a-constitutional-law-experts-view-249544
Elon Musk says the journalists at CBS 60 Minutes "deserve a long prison sentence".
The reporting that has him so upset includes this line: "The world's richest man had cut off assistance to the world's poorest families."
You can view it in full here (first ~15 minutes):
https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/w_Zoxuc1ZnjigRqeKhYpum3ZFHIf2Rbs/
US sovereign wealth fund: A feasible idea to invest strategically, or a giant opportunity for waste? https://buff.ly/40SEnpE
What should we do to restore and reinforce democracy? https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/02/17/what-should-we-do-to-restore-and-reinforce-democracy/ Democracy is in peril, not least in the UK. What should we do to restore it?
Trump makes first Supreme Court appeal in test of power to fire officials
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgpgeve76qo?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Top Stories @top-stories-BBCNews
